Congratulations to Daniel José Older, Aliette de Bodard, and E.C. Myers for all being named to NPR’s Best Books of 2018! This also marks the sixth consecutive year in which a JABberwocky client has been named to NPR’s Best Books of the Year and the first year in which three (!) JABberwocky clients have made the list in the same year.

Older is on the list for his critically-acclaimed DACTYL HILL SQUAD, the first in his new middle grade series set in an alternate Civil War-era New York City, where dinosaurs still roam the Earth, centered on Magdalys Roca, a young Cuban-American girl with the ability to telepathically communicate with dinosaurs, as she leads her friends to rescue their fellow orphans from an evil magistrate. Older has previously made the NPR Best Book list for his novels Shadowshaper and

Shadowhouse Fall.

De Bodard and Myers are on the list for their respective short story contributions to the anthology A THOUSAND BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman.

The anthology focuses on folktale and myth retellings from South and East Asian cultures, with most of the contributors of South or East Asian heritage. Each story contains an author’s note with a summary of the original tale and why the author chose to retell it. de Bodard’s story, “The Counting of Vermillion Beads,” is a reimagining of the Vietnamese fairy tale “Tấm and Cám.” In “The Land of the Morning Calm,” E.C. Myers gives his take on the Chasa Bonpula, a Korean epic.

Here’s a brief retrospective of previous NPR nominees, with links to buy the books:

2017: Daniel José Older, SHADOWHOUSE FALL (buy)

2016: Silvia Moreno-Garcia, CERTAIN DARK THINGS (buy)

2015: Daniel José Older, SHADOWSHAPER (buy)

2014: Marie Brennan, THE TROPIC OF SERPENTS: (buy)

2013: Marie Brennan, A NATURAL HISTORY OF DRAGONS (buy)

Let’s see if our streak continues next year too! Perhaps next time we’ll hit a home run…